1. Does the abode allow for a questioner's return,
And does the soul accept the reproach of the reproacher?

2. It is a home whose emptiness the winds lament,
When the flocks of my heart migrated from its dwellings.

3. A simpleton who bartered it for a pittance,
Or thousand miles walked by its suitors.

4. So it silenced the clamor of its revelry,
And was lonesome from the bleating of its camels.

5. As if the battle of Ahmed had ignited
Between its inhabitants and households.

6. He who controlled its horsemen in their lurking,
And made its refuge descend from its fortresses.

7. He who boasts of the honorable ancestry,
Rivals the sun in its mansions.

8. He who sailed the bounties till they overflowed,
While the rest of people sipped from its streams.

9. Beware of seeing its knights
Veiled in their armors.

10. For there are no thunders but their rages,
No lightnings but their swords.

11. The people of the Yemeni swords, if
Tameem claimed their artistry.

12. With steeds they guided to elegance,
Until they walked upon their saddles.

13. And spears they disliked to speak,
Until they complained to their makers.

14. So say to the people of meadows and barren camels,
Unbroken from its pools or coasts.

15. Do you have a knight like its knights?
Or an attainer like its attainers?

16. If I have not succeeded in its ancestry,
Or inherited from its predecessors.

17. I do not see a speaker like its speakers,
In glory, nor a doer like its doers.

18. Nor do I see an Ahmed like its Ahmed,
Climbing its might and reaching its goals.

19. The lion in its caves,
The slayer of horses in their charges.

20. The guide of the army if the resolve
Fell from the minds of its fortresses.

21. His spears never cease to be a sign,
That no might rivals the might of its bearer.

22. And the horses seek no champion but him,
In the meeting place of its arrows.

23. He leads them while the battle screams
Between their surge and ebb.

24. Branded to their feathered ends,
Bloodied to their shoulders.

25. Until the reply is obscured, and no soul responds
To the question of its questioner.

26. And it exhausted the people, every riddle
Whose truth is confused with its falsehood.

27. He then uncovered from it his unsheathed sword,
And bared his glittering blade.

28. This, even if the sky was miserly
To the earth with its pouring rains.

29. He whose comfort kept hovering
Over the scales, from its supererogations.

30. The hand of Allah predetermined it to be created,
The demise of its enemies and the fulfillment of its hopes.

31. Death gushes from its swords,
And the polished spear from its fingers.

32. If it raged against the wickedness of its defamer,
It returns souls to its ideals.

33. Next to you I say not, next to you
A wonder, nor boasting of its sayer.

34. Pride with praising you, not with the predecessors
Of tyrants, even if I counted among its speakers.

35. Both your hands, O son of the Yemen,
Are generous beyond its nobility.

36. My kinship is closer to probity than
Its lineages in the threads of its tribes.

37. The souls that saw you are reassured
That Allah has fulfilled their hopes.